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Ports problem in socket7 board

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First post, by aha2940

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Hi guys

I am having a strange issue with my socket7 motherboard, and I'd like to know if any of you has seen something like it, and how (if) you solved it. Basically, the problem is that my motherboard does not seem to honor the COM and LPT ports settings in the BIOS:

- If I disable them, Win98 sees them without any problem, but the parallel is seen as a regular parallel port
- If I set the COM ports to "auto" then win98 sees them too, but then a strange port COM4 appears out of nowhere, with settings "02E8, IRQ7"

I already updated the BIOS of the board, nothing changed. Any idea what could be wrong? or is it normal for windows to see disabled ports?

Thanks!

Reply 2 of 4, by aha2940

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_UV_ wrote on 2020-03-29, 10:10:

PNP settings in bios and "auto" means you have it enebled for Windows 98. And mobo (hardware in general) model is a good starting point for asking questions.

OK, the hardware is a motherboard TMC AI5TT, using an Award BIOS 4.51G. Pentium 233MMX, 64 MB RAM, it boots DOS 6.22 and Win98SE. I know what "auto" means, however I do not understand how this setting makes Windows see a third non-existant COM4 port (as I explained before). I also do not understand how a disabled port can be seen by Windows. Perhaps a bug in the BIOS?

Reply 3 of 4, by _UV_

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Auto and disabled isn't same. With auto bios try to assign free resources to active devices and looks like windows interpret it as you described. Or you have a modem... Disable it if you don't need it and anything related to auto allocation and switch PnP to bios instead of OS.

Something i think i forget, with disabled ports in bios remove them in windows and refresh hardware config. You shouldn't see them.

Reply 4 of 4, by aha2940

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_UV_ wrote on 2020-03-29, 14:36:

Auto and disabled isn't same. With auto bios try to assign free resources to active devices and looks like windows interpret it as you described. Or you have a modem... Disable it if you don't need it and anything related to auto allocation and switch PnP to bios instead of OS.

Something i think i forget, with disabled ports in bios remove them in windows and refresh hardware config. You shouldn't see them.

There is no modem at all, also please read the first post again:

"If I disable them (the COM ports), Win98 sees them without any problem, but the parallel is seen as a regular parallel port"

therefore my questions.

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